Going Bonkers...

Perrine clearly likes Emily Dickinson's poetry, as he has included three of her poems within the last sixty pages. Luckily, I also enjoy her poetry. For me, "Much Madness is divinest Sense" was the most difficult to immediately understand. However, that seems to be Dickinson's intention: she wishes us to feel confusion because the truth which she is telling is, in fact, a jumbled and nonsensical one. Her repetition of "Madness" and "Sense" (1, 3) in reverse syntax at first perplex the audience. How can madness be sense, and sense be madness?

Line 4, however, reveals the reason for this paradox. "'Tis the majority/ In this," (4-5) the speaker explains, that creates this discombobulation. The following lines continue by reflecting on society's stubborn tendency to accept one ideology and path to success and happiness and to shun all those who move against the grain. What is viewed as madness to society--to question or doubt the accepted in order to think for oneself--is, according to the speaker, common sense, and what makes sense to society--to blindly and mindlessly agree with society--is true madness. This seems especially prevalent in today's world, where people are often so stubborn-minded and blindly obedient that they are unable to actually think for themselves. Though Dickinson likely was finding objection in her 19th-century world, there is no doubt she would think the same of this 21st-century society in which we live.